Happy Halloween!
Wokeup somewhat exhausted this morning, didn't sleep well. Had a dark feeling of the day, in more ways than one. Daylight savings time was going to have a severe impact of my cycling - heading out while dark after work to bike for 2+ hours IN the dark, didn't bode well...at least until Spring. And it was Halloween (which ordinarilly I love) - but there was something freaky about the trifecta effect. I headed into the office and there was a fucked up stillness in the air - something was up. Well, found out quickly after I made an attempt to log into my computer - zero internet access. I knew it was eventually was gonna happen, our company has been flirting with the idea of having a closed intranet structure - no access to the outside world. But without a contingency plan, or a way for folks like me in my position and my responsibilities....I was looking at a day of 95% inactivity - a complete impact on what I can do without access. So that was my workday - no way to get to my email to deal with the clients we support, no way to access the net to do my standard research and whatnot for the continual projects that I manage, and more importantly, to be able to access the websites that our company manages, to test for the requests we have to change, et al. SO what was I to do? Just sit and steam. Was a frustrating day. Until "management" decided it was a wrong move - there was nothing they could do, gave us a few computers with access, but no way to transfer things between computers. Oh the drama. so after a full afternoon of frustration, they decided to let us go early at about 5pm.
It was just about to go sundown, so I hurried to suit up and bike out to Purcellville with a fully charged battery for my lights, and dressed down - it was about 71 degrees as I left.
It was a beautiful sunset and I was sailing out west - was hitting pockets of warmth and cool spots, then it became dark. I was heading thru Leesburg and noticed that I'd only seen 2 other folks out on the trail - obviously Halloween. Things started to spook me, with the leaves being crunched upon with deer, then a dude in a trench coat walking on the trail - scared the shit out of me. Then a final fright....another cyclist snuck up behind me...and cleared his throat while trying to say Hello...sounded like the devil....he saddled up and we biked out to Hamilton before he got off the trail. The funny thing was that after a few miles, we stopped off at an intersection, I looked over...he was wearing a full body Spiderman costume over his cycling clothes, complete with mask (under helmet). Bout freaked me out. He commutes to work daily and biked into work wearing that costume...then was heading home to go trick or treating with his kids. I found it amusing.